MY EVENING

At a certain point, I realized I was sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. Thankfully, the fourth season of LOST starts tomorrow.

SATAN'S JETTA

I went to the DMV today to take care of an expired car registration. I was hoping I could go a full year without getting pulled over, but Pantego's law enforcement is vigilante about this stuff. Yeah, I was too lazy to take care of it online, back in November. I'm pathetic. For whatever reason, it was also time for new license plates. The lady behind the glass looked at my new license plate number, and put it back: "You don't want this one." She reached for new plates. I was curious. What is it?

"CSY 666"

Sweet. The mark of the beast. I'll take it. She smiled suspiciously, "Really?" I figure, why not? It'll be a conversation piece for my car. Then I went home and put them on. I stepped back, and realized I just put 666 on my Volkswagen Jetta. Accidental personalized plates. Somewhere there's a Satanist named Casey who is pissed.

SHAKESPEARE

I've been on a huge Shakespeare kick lately. Last year, I made a New Year's resolution to read all his plays. That fell through. So, I'm renewing my resolution. However, I've limited it to these ten as a starting point -- Othello, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Hamlet, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I figure by 2009 I can add some more titles. It's also easier to find film versions of these ten. So that when I finish reading the script, I can then watch it. The whole idea is to come to a greater appreciation of good storytelling. Hopefully, it'll serve to inspire me in my own writing. What better writer than Shakespeare?

In the car, I was listening to This American Life on my glorious iPod. The episode Act V:

Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act -- Act V -- of Hamlet. Shakespeare may seem like an odd match for a group of hardened criminals, but Jack found that they understand the Bard on a level that most of us might not. It's a play about murder and its consequences, performed by murderers, living out the consequences.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

It looks like you can read my entire essay "A History of Violence" on Google Book Search. The essay was originally published in The Man From Krypton: A Closer Look At Superman as part of BenBella Books' Smart Pop Series. (click here)

I also wrote an essay for the Spider-Man Smart Pop Book.

I NEVER LIKED THE WORD "BLOG"

D Magazine posted my review of Great Wolf Lodge on their FrontBurner blog (click here). Paul Milligan, my daughter Kennedy and I went to the resort this past weekend to do some research for an upcoming "Souvenir of Dallas" comic.

Also, I've joined the community blog for STAPLE! I haven't written anything, but soon I will.

If you're curious, other blogs I visit daily:
The Beat | Stereogum | Pop Candy | Unfair Park | FrontBurner

DALLAS COMIC CON RECAP

Having been to almost every Dallas Comic Con for the past five years, and being a guest at many of them, this event has a sentimental effect on me. My friend Wim and I attended Dallas Comic Con as our first convention after a ten year hiatus; I remember meeting Cal Slayton, Scott Kurtz, and Nick Derington at the Dallas Comic Con. My own aspirations to create comics was inspired/encouraged in part by them. I wanted to be where they were. I remember purchasing my first booth, with several copies of my own mini-comic displayed. I think I sold maybe five copies, if that. I remember my first invitation to be a guest -- getting excited to see my name in the program, and how cool it was to spend the day hanging out with Cal.

After awhile, the guests, the attendees, and the exhibitors become familiar. There are people I only see at these events, and it's cool to get updates on how everyone's doing. Sometimes my books sell like crazy, and sometimes they don't, but it's always about having a chance to meet somebody new and geek out about comics.

This past weekend was probably my favorite, even though I wasn't able to stay the entire time. My booth had a few more books on it than when I first started. The comics panel was fun. Overall, I was just kicking back and enjoying myself. Not to mention, it was nifty to see Missi Pyle, who I will always remember from Josie and the Pusscats (a most underrated movie).

Terry Moore's report | Randy Andrews' report

My interview for the Half Hour Wasted podcast (listen here)

MISCELLANY

A review from the Comic Book Gazette (click here to read)

Astronaut Dad is on sale -- $4.99 at Silent Devil's website for a limited time. (click here)

The Dallas Comic Con is this weekend. I will be participating in a panel with Terry Moore, Scott Kurtz, and Kris Straub at 2 PM. If you're able to attend, I hope to see you there.

Make sure to pre-order the next issue of Comic Foundry. It's a great magazine. Well worth your time and money.

I took a typing test on this website -- 68 words per minute with no errors. Feel free to post your scores here.

PEOPLE SEEM TO LIKE ASTRONAUD DAD, PART 2

A good review from Pop Syndicate's Ken Lowery (click here):

It’s a truism that you can never truly understand your parents until you’ve been where they are, and by then it’s often too late. That Astronaut Dad walks the line of intersection between these two perspectives so flawlessly is a minor miracle, and shows a dimension to Hopkins’ writing that hasn’t previously manifested.

You need to read the whole article. More than just throwing his opinion around, Ken gives great analysis of everything he reviews. For instance, check out his new film review website.

PEOPLE SEEM TO LIKE ASTRONAUD DAD

As posted in The Oklahoman newspaper, Matt Price lists his top 10 graphic novels for 2007. Astronaut Dad is #9. (click here)

If you haven't purchased a copy yet, you can now order it through Silent Devil's website. (click here) So far, we've received incredible reviews for Astronaut Dad. And here I thought no one would dig on a family drama.

Also, next weekend, I'll be a guest at the Dallas Comic Con. There's going to be some great guests -- including my indie hero Terry Moore, and my favorite artists Nick Derington, Kristian Donaldson, Brian Denham, Cat Staggs, and Cal Slayton.

MY NEW STUFF IS OLD. MY OLD STUFF IS NEW.

My books were published in this order: Emily Edison, Antigone, Karma Incorporated, and Astronaut Dad. However, they were written in reverse order. How does that happen? Astronaut Dad was the second comic book I ever wrote, even before the mini-comic I self published. I didn't think I could find a publisher for Astronaut Dad, so I tucked it away. Karma Incorporated was published as a three issue series, but the trade paperback didn't come out until a few months ago. We wanted to get the second series approved before we released the first, and that took some time. I wrote Antigone next, but wasn't too happy with the first version of the script. While Tom and I waited to get approval on the second Karma Incorporated book, we decided to finish Antigone. Then I wrote Emily Edison with Brock.

Thus to suggest that my work gets "better and better" would actually depress me.

It takes so long to get a comic book on the shelf; I'm amused when they come out in this order. To continue this tradition, the first chapter of the new Karma Incorporated was written a few years ago, and it'll be ready sometime this year. Likewise, there's tons of stuff I've written in the past two years that hasn't been published. One would think I'd try to write something, get it published, and then write something else. Instead, I tend to write lots of stuff at once, all in various stages of completion. Bolivar should be next. But since it looks to be my longest project yet, who knows?

GOODBYE YEAR OF THE PIG. HELLO RAT.

Can I describe this year without resorting to that overused Charles Dickens opening? Truthfully, the "worst of times" could have been much worse. Everything was handled as best as possible, and I can't ask for more than that. A lot of difficult moments were really about moving forward and hoping for something more. An opportunity to restart without losing what matters most. For the first time in almost eight years, I was truly alone. At least, I felt alone. Not isolated, but simply occupying my own space and no one else's. So I moved forward, and found things to be even more complex and wonderful than I could've imagined previously. This is the year where everything changed, like I've gotten older and younger simultaneously. I've loosened up a bit. I don't take myself quite as seriously. All the same, my thoughts still get cloudy now and again. It'll take time to fully get what this year was about.

This "year in review" blog post is something of a tradition. Previous years: 2004 | 2005 | 2006

Memorable events for 2007:

* Le Divorce
* Meeting April
* MoCCA Art Fest in New York City
* Tuesday nights at Amsterdam Bar
* Road trip
* Scott McCloud's presentation at UTA
* La Reunion Workshop: Scriptwriting for Graphic Novels
* Taking Kennedy to Disneyland

Favorite comic books in 2007:

* Buddha (softcover) vols.5-8
* Amulet
* From Hell
* Super Spy
* The Umbrella Academy
* Strangers In Paradise, Pocket Book 6
* Notes for a War Story

Favorite TV Shows in 2007:

* Lost
* How I Met Your Mother
* Flight of the Conchords
* The Wire
* Battlestar Galactica
* Mythbusters

Favorite movies I watched in 2007:

* Rocket Science
* The Darjeeling Limited
* The Savages
* Knocked Up
* Me and You and Everyone We Know
* The Night of the White Pants
* King of Kong

Favorite food for 2007:

* Marie Callender's Salisbury Steak

Favorite music for 2007:

* Bishop Allen, The Broken String
* Danger Doom, The Mouse and the Mask
* Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
* The Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
* Battles, Mirrored

Going to get some sleep now.

STUFF TO DO

I really need to clean out my garage and my office. Need to paint my office too. Need to finish raking and bagging leaves. Need to finish chapter two of Bolivar -- which by the way, Diana sent me the final inked pages for chapter one and they look beautiful. She has some concept sketches to work through, and then we're putting together the proposal. Need to buy some groceries. Need to pay some bills first.

TAKE BACK YOUR TIME, RAKE LEAVES

I'm on my Christmas break right now. One of the perks of being a teacher. I would suggest that everybody should get this much time away from work -- if not more. Yes, I'm a big proponent of this cause. From the site:

"Vacations are vanishing. Only 14% of Americans will get a vacation of two weeks or longer this year. A third of women and a quarter of men get no annual leave anymore, as annual leave benefits are being eliminated like pensions. Many others are afraid to use their paid leave for fear they could be laid off or demoted if they do. No wonder the average American vacation is now down to a long weekend."

Other interesting facts:

* We're putting in longer hours on the job now than we did in the 1950s, despite promises of a coming age of leisure before the year 2000.

* In fact, we're working more than medieval peasants did, and more than the citizens of any other industrial country.

* Mandatory overtime is at near record levels, in spite of a recession.

* On average, we work nearly nine full weeks (350 hours) LONGER per year than our peers in Western Europe do.

* Working Americans average a little over two weeks of vacation per year, while Europeans average five to six weeks. Many of us (including 37% of women earning less than $40,000 per year) get no paid vacation at all.

So don't hassle me for having a Christmas break, a Spring break, and a Summer break. I'm just doing my career the right way, the healthy way. Plus, this extra time is usually the justification for low teacher salaries -- eight years at the same job, and I'm making barely more than when I started. During the summer, the more guilty-minded teachers usually waste away doing workshops or summer school. I spend the time with my daughter or writing. Yesterday, I was raking leaves.


The perspective is a little off, but I swear this pile is at least 5' tall. Enjoy your time off. Don't feel guilty about it. You deserve more.

THE NEW DESIGN, AGAIN

The web design I started a few months ago is finally finished. You're looking at it -- a simple design and hopefully easy to navigate, art by my friend Dave Crosland. It took longer than I thought it would. I spent an unbelievable amount of time agonizing over fonts, which the title font is called "Later On" if you're curious. April helped a lot with her feedback. It doesn't hurt to have a girlfriend with a degree in Design. We had lengthy discussions on the number of menu links and the value of an ampersand. I took Dan Warner's suggestion with the blog titles for the RSS feed. (Thank you!)

Today is my first day of Christmas break... and thank god. Kennedy is at daycare; I'm in the office working. It's been a surprisingly productive morning. Although tomorrow, I have to rake leaves.

Also, the trailer for Persepolis is now on Apple trailers (click here).

ANOTHER GOOD REVIEW

Astronaut Dad received a good review from Bart Croonenborghs at the Broken Frontier website. (click here)

Schoonover has a good grasp on the characters and combined with the distinct voices David Hopkins gives the protagonists, they really make the reader care. At the end of the book, you want to know how the story ends and that is the highest compliment an art team can get.

Also, I finally upgraded to a pro account on Flickr, so all my older photos held hostage have reappeared.

NITPICK DESIGN

For those people who don't like the new design, over the next few weeks, I'm going to make a few changes here and there. Mainly do a better job of intergrating the lovely Crosland artwork into the overall design. Add a rollover for the menu links, with some color. Also, change up the font for the menu. It won't be a huge change, but I like to nit-pick on this stuff. I still like the navigation and content. Anyways. That's all from me.